If you roam large cities like New York or Amsterdam long enough, you’ll notice something.
These battery-assisted vehicles are often referred to as electronic Quads and tend to be directed towards households, unlike household cargo e-bikes. The e-quads are bigger and hold sport enclosed cargo, allowing you to become a beloved person of delivery companies like Amazon and UPS, avoiding the crowds of regular box trucks.
Currently, Honda offers its own take on First Port Equad, the vehicle type.
Equad comes in two sizes built on the same basic platform. Both are smaller than the smallest Mini Cooper, but can carry between 320 and 650 pounds. There are pedals, and the top speed is limited to 12 mph (20 kph), both of which have requirements to keep the bike lane legal.
To maintain Equad Trucking, Honda uses a mobile power pack battery. The 22 pound battery can be replaced for fresh packs like Gogoro and Zeno. By grabbing the built-in handle, the driver (or rider?) can drop it into the caddy just below and below the cockpit.
Inside the cockpit, drivers have regular bike seats, pedals and windshields. The display helps the driver stay on the route. Based on the number of mentions in the press release, Honda really hopes this will be considered a software-defined vehicle. This unlocks “continuous value and improvement over the life of the vehicle” but does not specify what they are.
The US-bound Equad will be built at the Honda Performance Manufacturing Center in Ohio. For the artisans who work there, the Trundling Equad is a very different assignment. Previously, it was best known for manually assembling the second-generation Acura NSX, a supercar with over 500 horsepower that can reach 191 mph.